


Fox Cub

by Porkchop_Sandwiches



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, season one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 17:20:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20642843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Porkchop_Sandwiches/pseuds/Porkchop_Sandwiches
Summary: It was a little underwhelming finding Jesse in bed.Upstairs with the lamp of his nightstand on, the boy was in the middle of his mattress, back to Walt, curled into himself in only boxers and his bandages; a small ball of downy hair and bed-head like a wounded fox cub tucked into the hollow of a tree.





	Fox Cub

**Author's Note:**

> Set near the end of season one when Jesse's ribs are still broken from Tuco attacking him. Just come classic hurt/comfort :)

Walt would have never noticed the call if he hadn’t been awake at three in the morning. He’d been sitting on the floor of Holly’s room with his back to her still empty crib, idly thumbing through the ringtone options on his burner, wide awake with insomnia instead of nausea this time. 

It seemed the chemo only upset his stomach while he was trying to teach. He guessed at least that left the bathroom available in the AM for Skyler’s morning sickness, which was only just now abating as she entered her second trimester. She was making more trips to the kitchen, hence why he had the light off. The dimness of the room made the screen of his phone nearly blinding. 

Jesse’s name flashed at him about as foreboding as a clock radio in the dark early morning of a school day.

He flipped his phone open with a few muttered profanities somewhere between the third and fourth vibration—he’d still yet to pick a suitable ringtone—and with hushed, hardly veiled annoyance, “_ Jesse, it’s nearly three-thirty in the _—“

But all Walt could hear on the other end was muffled sounds of distress: groaning and rustling and gulping. The line died.

Walt was dressed in a t-shirt and sweatpants, out the door, and in his car in less than two minutes. 

As he passed a row of darkened ranch-style homes and turned out of his neighborhood, switching on the heat, he began making a mental list of potential threats: Tuco shattered another half dozen of Jesse’s ribs, or maybe it was an associate of Tuco, a disgruntled customer, something the boy got himself into due to his own stupidity, an overdose. 

Last Walt had checked, Jesse had just under a pound of their product. 

If say someone were to make rat poison and the rat ate it and died, who was really responsible? 

Walt screeched to a stop to avoid running a red light. He felt like an idiot sitting in a faint haze of his owned burned rubber on a completely empty street. Hitting play on his Steely Dan album, he thought, “To hell with it,” and ran the light. 

And there were no sirens, or red and blue lights, only green ones right up to Jesse’s house. 

He hesitated at the front door with his phone to his ear. No response. The curtains were partially closed but it looked as if every light were still on. Only the boy’s car in the driveway. No sight of any black Cadillac. 

Trying the knob, Walt found it unlocked. The living room reeked of marijuana and Chinese food: fried rice, egg rolls, something sweet. 

“Jesse_ ?” _ Walt looked behind the sofa. “ _ Jess _ e?” He peered down the hall, not quite sure why he was whispering and behaving like he was in the middle of a game of hide-and-go-seek. With one foot on the bottom step, he raised his voice, “ _ Jesse _.”

It was a little underwhelming finding Jesse in bed.

Upstairs with the lamp of his nightstand on, the boy was in the middle of his mattress, back to Walt, curled into himself in only boxers and his bandages; a small ball of downy hair and bed-head like a wounded fox cub tucked into the hollow of a tree. 

“Jesse,” Walt said. “_ Jesse?” _

The boy turned only his neck towards Walt, eyes barely open, blinking slowly. “I’m awake. Alright, man?” 

But he shut his eyes again, and Walt considered leaving.

“What exactly are you doing then?"

Jesse’s voice was slightly muddled, slow. “Concentrating so I can change my dream. Don’t want to fuck you again, yo. Like I don’t think I do. Guess like last time wasn’t so”—He peered at Walt—“You ain’t really here, right? _ Mr. White _? What...what the hell are you doin’ here?”

He sounded about as ill as Walt felt; indeed what the hell was he doing here? And what had Jesse even said? Walt wasn’t sure he wanted to follow whatever tangent that was too closely. 

“You called me.”

Jesse scowled. “Did _ not _.”

“Did too,” Walt said.

“If you ain’t a freaky dream, then like _ don’t _change into a dragon or like turn…randomly like…handsome.” He stared at Walt with a focus he’d never seen from Jesse before.

Walt waited a full minute before he raised his arms in surrender. “Jesse”—

“Yo, Mr. White why would I call—“

Walt held up the opened screen of his phone to the incriminating missed call. “Jesse?”

He coughed. “_ Shit _. Must of…must have like butt-dialed you. Or like elbow-dialed. I got some Chinese for lunch with Skinny Pete and Combo at this new place by Combo’s old job ‘cause like I was craving orange chicken. And like I wanted to cheer myself up ‘cause my ribs are fucked up and shit. Think I got food poisoning. Started getting sick at like one in the afternoon and just kept going. Even got my ass back in this haunted as fuck house ‘cause no way was I like gonna hurl in the RV like all up in our cooking space. I was puking so hard, thought I needed to call poison control or like 9-1-1 or—“Jesse groaned and tightened his arms around himself, “like my mom or something. Guess I got you instead. Sorry.” 

There was something alarming about hearing Jesse apologize. 

Walt was too tired to be angry. He waved dismissively. “Has it subsided at least…the vomiting?”

Jesse nodded. “Dry-heaved for like half an hour though. _ Yo _, how’d you even get inside?” He hung his head back and sighed. “Damn. Skinny left the door unlocked again, didn’t he?”

“Someone did.” Walt shrugged. “Guess I’ll head out.”

“_ Huh _? Oh…yeah.” Jesse had a sheepish expression on his face. “Yo, you can say no or whatever, but first can you like heat this up for me?”

Unfolding his arms, he produced what looked like a completely warped—_ had he melted the thing _?—mostly full Dasani bottle. 

“What is this?”

“A hot water bottle…for like, you know, stomach cramps,” he said.

Walt could make out a pink blobbed mark on the boy’s stomach, practically see the Dasani logo imprinted on his skin. He was momentarily stunned silent.

“Jesse, this isn’t a hot water bottle.”

“Yeah, I know ‘cause it cooled off. That’s what shit does when it’s out of the microwave for too long. You never had like a Hot Pocket, Mr. White?”

Walt stepped past him into Jesse’s bathroom and checked the drawers. From his inspection of the kitchen a month earlier, it had looked like most of Jesse’s aunt’s belongings were still in the house. Maybe he’d find a _ real _hot water bottle…or at least some old TUMS. Glancing at himself in the mirror, he briefly wondered if Jesse had actually called him…handsome?

His eyes dropped to the counter where he spotted an opened, almost empty container of NyQuil.

He opened the medicine cabinet. “Jesse, why are you taking cold medicine with an upset stomach?”

“’Cause it’s not like they make like Pepto-Bismol PM. Like yo, you barfing your guts out_ AND _ you’re tired as fuck _ AND _you got busted ribs? Here’s some medicine-shit for it. Tastes like jelly beans and knocks you out cold. Shit, we should make that, Mr. White.” Walt could hear Jesse chuckle, then moan. “Yo, you gonna heat up my water bottle or do I gotta do it?”

Something slammed onto the hardwood.

Walt ran out of the bathroom to find Jesse in a tiny lump on the floor. 

Jesse snickered. “Yo, I fell.”

“How much NyQuil did you take?”

“Like…_ all of it _,” Jesse said. He struggled to pull himself up, rested his face against his sheets. “Not my fault my tolerance is so…high. I’m kind of”—muffled giggle—“like a little bit high, man.” 

Lumbering up on his knuckles like an ape, Jesse somehow managed to crawl back up on the bed. Walt had intended to assist in some way but it thankfully hadn’t come to that. There was nothing but expired cosmetics and toiletries in the bathroom so he figured he might as well check the kitchen. 

Walt was halfway down the stairs when he heard, “Yo, use the popcorn setting. Works best.”

Jesse’s kitchen smelled even stronger of Chinese food, thick like he was drowning in a vat of hot oil. But it only took inspecting two drawers before he was holding a proper hot water bottle: big enough to span both of his hands, a dark, ruddy pink and flat like the tongue of an animal, maybe a cow or a cat. Looking closer, he read a small, “microwave safe” inscription on the bottom left corner. 

He filled it up at the sink, brushed what looked to be red Pop-Tart crumbs from the rotating plate inside, and let it heat for several thirty second intervals. It was maybe the third or so round when he glimpsed his distorted reflection from the door of the microwave. He passed a hand down his face, thumbed his jaw, and turned his head a little. 

Scoffing at himself, he cleaned his glasses on his cotton sleep shirt and made his way back upstairs with a balmy hot water bottle. 

Jesse had moved to his other side, now facing the door. He was visibly shivering and looked frightened. 

“Yo, what the hell is that?”

“An _ actual _hot water bottle,” Walt said.

“_ Nu-uh _ . Hell nah. Shit looks like a whoopee cushion. Or like a weird, sex thing.” He scooted back against the sheets, teeth chattering. “Dude, or like a sex-whoopee-cushion-thing. Fuck that. If you’re touching me, we’re sticking to like the front. _ No _ butt stuff, yo.”

Reasoning with Jesse in general was difficult enough, let alone trying to do so when he was pumped full of NyQuil and running on an empty stomach, a light head, and some sort of bizarre erotic paranoia.

Walt shook his head. “What is a sex whoopee cushion?”

“Yo, I don’t know. _ You’re _ the homo.”

“_ You’re _ the one having sex dreams about me,” Walt said.

Jesse balked. “Says who, yo?”

Walt needed to redirect this or he was never going home. “Jesse, this is a hot water bottle.”

“_ Prove it _,” Jesse said. “Yo, like a take a drink or something.”

Walt squinted. “It’s not _ that _ kind of water bottle. Here just”—

He gently placed it beneath Jesse’s left ribcage, directly against his stomach and overlapping some of his bandages. 

Jesse sighed as his eyes fluttering closed. “_ Oh _. That’s uh…that’s good.”

Walt absently hummed and stood there until his shoulder began to ache. It was at least a _ little _ odd being so close to the elastic of Jesse’s boxers. Though they were longer and covered more than the shorts Walt had worn in grade school gym class. 

“Jesse, are you going to hold this yourself or are you going to make me do it all night?”

“That’s what she said, Mr. White.” He snickered softly. “This totally works better than what I was doing. Feels kind of weird…like a…waterbed for like a kitten or some shit. But it…feels good.” 

With his eyes still shut, Jesse slowly wrapped his arms around himself, inadvertently and quit firmly hugging Walt’s hand. 

“You’re”—

He jumped and cracked one eye open. “Yo, why are you so warm?”

“I’m not. You’re just very cold,” Walt said. Jesse was chilled to the touch, goosebumps looking like raised scales along his dragon tattoo that was only slightly more prominent than his nipples. They were about as hard and pink as the jelly beans Jesse had mentioned before. “Where’s your comforter?”

“Can’t remember. But I’m pretty sure I barfed on it.”

“Do you have a spare?”

“Don’t know,” Jesse said. He’d yet to let go. He moved his hand with the scorpion farther up Walt’s wrist. “Could make one out of all this arm hair though.”

Jesse chuckled, and Walt was getting irritated because _ really _, he’d been put through enough tonight. Attempting to pull back, Walt was caught off guard when Jesse pulled him down.

He lost his balance a bit and soon discovered his hand had landed between Jesse’s legs where he was considerably warmer. 

The sleepy and bewildered expression on Jesse’s face made it clear it wasn’t deliberate. Though he wasn’t making any sort of move to correct it.

“Jesse, it appears your groin is in my hand.”

“Yeah I thought so too,” Jesse said. He sounded guilty. “Is that bad?”

“Depends; do you plan on peeing on me?” Walt said. When Jesse shook his head in disgust, Walt seriously wondered what he was doing. “Is this when you chime in with the name-calling?”

“Yo, depends.” Jesse lowered his voice. “You…gonna make me come, Mr. White?”

At this point everything in Walt’s life seemed to be traveling at zero to sixty miles an hour. Why would this be any exception?

“Depends,” Walt said. He cradled Jesse’s cock through his boxers--a little bigger than he’d predicted if he were honest--and felt him stiffen. Walt had never in his life touched another man like this. But it wasn’t exactly repulsive. Jesse seemed to like it. Well his body did at least. Jesse was already leaking onto his boxer shorts. “Do you really...think I’m...handsome?”

The pause was insulting.

Jesse scrunching up his face-- albeit while attempting to roll his pelvis up into Walt’s palm--didn’t help matters.

“Yo, I guess...sometimes?” Jesse said. He seemed to reconsider when Walt loosened his grip. “Shit, Mr. White. You want me to tell you I fucking love you? Like the Lex Luthor thing you got going on works for you. And when you’re being...nice. Like telling me I’m doing a good job. You know...giving me props and shit.”

Walt could work with that. As ludicrous as it felt, he was aroused. The heavy lump in his gut was practically instantaneous. It felt like the plump hot water bottle that had fallen to Jesse’s side on the bed at this point. Ruse gone. Just this palpable, animalistic tension here now. He’d later use that as an excuse.

“Good,” Walt said. He slipped two fingers inside Jesse’s fly, barely brushing the head of his prick. His own cock throbbed when Jesse gave out a moan so deep it must have come from the very depth of his diaphragm. _ Positive reinforcement: _ that was what Jesse wanted. He’d put a pin in that. “Look how wet you’ve made your boxers. Good, Jesse.”

The boy shuddered as Walt wrapped his hand tightly around his shaft, choking on what may have been a chuckle. “Yo, I ain’t...ain’t a dog”--

Walt used his free hand to yank Jesse’s boxers halfway down his thighs. He stroked him just once.

“Good boy,” Walt said. It was hard not to be smug when Jesse dribbled a thick line of pre-come. He thumbed at the tip and was rewarded with a little more. “That’s it, Jesse. Good boy.”

Walt gave the boy another slow, sticky slide of his fist. 

And by god was Jesse a sight: thighs gaping eagerly open, cock harder than crystal, breathy and pliant. Walt couldn’t believe how much he was enjoying this. He wanted this to last, to tease him. Make him earn it so to speak. But once his lips began to fall open, leg muscles tightening, Walt pressed Jesse’s cock flush up against his stomach.

“_ Mr. White _,” he moaned. 

He came in spurts on his chest: messy, and hedonistic like something Walt would see in an adult film. It was too much.

Dabbing up a slick spot from Jesse’s sternum, Walt shoved his hand into his sweats and began to masturbate furiously. “_ Shit _.”

“Right on, Mr. White.”

Jesse reached for him with a shaky hand. He grazed the pads of his fingers against Walt’s clothed knee. And that was apparently all Walt needed. 

He felt his orgasm from the inside out, forehead beginning to overheat and thence realized he was starting a coughing fit. Retreating to Jesse’s bathroom, he rode out the hacking before it subsided and he could clean himself up. 

He walked back into the bedroom with a flowery hand towel. Jesse was sitting up on his elbows, surveying himself. Walt tossed him the cloth.

“Thanks. Uh yo, I got some of it on your...sex toy,” Jesse said. 

“You need to change those.” Walt pointed to Jesse’s now soiled bandages. “I’m assuming the hospital gave you extra.”

“In the nightstand.” Jesse sighed sleepily, starting to wiggle closer to that side of the bed. He froze and winced before squirming again.

“Jesse. Here. Just...stay.”

Walt collected the gauze and tape from the drawer and propped Jesse up. He steadied Jesse with a hand on his lower back. And while he couldn’t tell how much of the boy’s weight was resting on him, it still managed to surprise him how light Jesse felt despite his obvious small stature.

“Yo, be careful,” Jesse said.

It sounded more like a plea than a demand and Walt couldn’t blame him too much considering how bruised he looked once he’d been stripped. Jesse practically hissed as Walt began wrapping him in the fresh bandage.

Walt rubbed Jesse’s shoulder and slowed a bit.

“Did I ever tell you my parents used to own an RV?” He waited for Jesse to shake his head. His teeth were clenched. Walt grabbed two pillows and crammed them behind Jesse so he could lie back more comfortably. “My mother wasn’t much of an...outdoors-y type, but it was nice getting out of the house...when my father was sick. We eventually had to sell it. But on our last trip out to Colorado...just for a weekend...one morning I found a fox cub limping with a bad paw. It had been skunked too. All the adults at the campsite refused to go near it. I was maybe five or six. When they went for the park ranger, I fed it my bacon and eggs.”

“Was it a red or grey fox?” Jesse said.

“Red. With a black nose and a white tip to its tail. It was...beautiful. I’ll never forget it.”

Walt neglected to mention how he’d begged his mother to let him keep it. Even at that age he understood the park ranger could only do so much before he released it back into the woods. But his mother had told him that just because the fox was wounded, keeping it as a pet could do it even more harm.

He hadn’t talked back. But when she was cleaning the breakfast dishes, he worked up the nerve to pet it. The thing was so exhausted it hadn’t snapped at Walt or tried to bite him. His fur was soft like a cat’s.

He was nearly done wrapping Jesse up, rubbing his shoulder again when Walt needed to tighten up the last loop around before securing the tape.

“Yo, anyone ever tell you you’re like...nicer after you...like blow your load?” Jesse hummed. “Gonna...put a pin in that.”

Walt didn’t know how to respond. Maybe question Jesse’s sincerity? What was he implying? He’d...assist next time? Walt considered calling Jesse on his bluff. No. Sarcasm seemed preferable: something clever that would take Jesse off guard.

“Is that so?” Walt said.

He smiled and lifted his gaze.

Jesse was asleep. His head had rolled forward, eyes closed, breathing evenly.

Figured.

Walt pinched the bridge of his nose. He knew he was past due for some rest himself. Clear his mind certainly. And while he wasn’t really in the mood to go on a wild goose chase for another blanket, he scanned the room and found a black hoodie with red and white stripes and some sort of wool inner lining. It looked warm enough.

Draping it over Jesse, Walt was pleased to see it practically swallowed his frame entirely. He tucked the sleeves gently under Jesse’s sides and covered his bare feet with his sheets.

“Good,” Walt said, mostly to himself. He gave Jesse’s knee a parting pat, “Good, Jesse.”


End file.
